


Your Heart is All I Need

by Muir_Wolf



Category: Alice (2009)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-13
Updated: 2011-04-13
Packaged: 2017-10-18 00:30:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muir_Wolf/pseuds/Muir_Wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're making a go of it.  <i>He buys her a spider plant, instead, and then ends up taking care of it, because she’s absolutely rubbish at plants.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Heart is All I Need

**Author's Note:**

> (Alice isn't mine, etc.)
> 
> This is a gift!fic for the lovely yavie_namarie. Her prompt was Alice/Hatter, and -
> 
>  _Oh how quiet, quiet the world can be  
>  When it's just you and little me  
> Everything is clear and everything is new  
> So you won't be leaving will you_

He gets a job at a local Starbucks after Alice writes on his resume that he owned a Tea Shop in England, and he gives a ridiculously charming interview.

It takes him less than a week to realize that he hates not wearing his hat, hates wearing the green apron, and really truly utterly and absolutely hates the looping music. He doesn’t quit, though, because he came over to make this work, and Alice is worth the utterly boring and dull ( _so_ dull, so _very_ dull) hours. And monotonous music. And customers who are so very, very _rude._

But he’s staying (for now) with Alice, and Alice’s mum (mom?), and he should probably be earning his keep, or…

Or something like that?

(Sometimes he rather misses the simplicity of Wonderland, where he knows how things work and what things are called.)

And when Alice comes in and sees him, standing there behind the counter, a sad look on his face and coffee spilt on his apron, she laughs (and laughs) (and continues to laugh, and really, Alice, love, that’s just plain mean, it is), and then she tugs him out from behind the counter.

“Maybe we should find you a job you’re more suited to?” she asks, and he’s nodding before she even finishes, because even in Alice’s world, such as it is, there must be something better than this.

(He has, however, developed a fondness for coffee. As long as it’s thoroughly diluted with milk and sugar and sometimes chocolate. Alice, predictably, likes her almost black. Disgusting, is what it is.)

 

 

David’s name is David, here, but Alice calls him Hatter. She says it loud and happy, lets it ring out across a crowded room when she meets his eyes or down the street as he walks toward her. It’s odd—a good odd, though, he likes it, he does, but sometimes, when the walls and ground beneath him and even the sun and sky just seem _off_ , it helps a little to hear his name from her lips.

They eat pizza, sitting outside and people watching, and they play catch with each other’s gaze, flicking their eyes away as the other looks over.

“Hatter,” she says, with her usual direct way, leaning her elbow on the table, “Do you like it here?”

Sometimes he looks at her like she can’t quite be real, his fingers stretching out to brush along her cheek, his eyes searching for some sort of confirmation. For now, he rubs his thumb along her knuckles and smiles at her, his lips curling up in his familiar rugged grin. “Yes,” he says, “Yes, I do.”

 

 

Neither of them were expecting Jack to ever come back to this side again. Hatter’s actually fairly sure there’s probably some sort of law that Jack’s breaking, because having the heir to the throne lost on the other side of the looking glass is nothing compared to the actual _king_.

Jack’s all blinding white teeth and square jaw and Hatter gets his back up at the mere sight of him, except then Alice has tucked her arm into Hatter’s, and Hatter settles.

“Jack,” she says. “What are you doing here?”

Her voice is cool, and level, and it bothers Hatter just a little that he knows that both he and Jack are considering what a Queen she could have made. But she’s not a queen, is she? She’s back here with pizza and coffee establishments with terrible dress codes and living with her mum, and if she’s anyone’s, she’s Hatter’s.

Jack hands a bag to Hatter, and Hatter opens it with a frown. There’s a lot currency (money? cash? whatever it’s called) in the bag, and Alice doesn’t quite manage to stifle a gasp.

“I can’t—” Hatter says, because evidently he’s the sort of man who says things like that, now, even though it makes him feel slightly dirty, but Jack shakes his head and smiles with those bloody white teeth.

“It’s the money from your Tea Shop,” he says. “You told me to sell it, and there’s your money. We finally figured out an exchange rate for here.”

“An exchange rate?” Alice says, sounding amused, and Jack shrugs. “So you’re still doing business over here?”

“Trinkets,” Jack assures her. “And books. Lots of books. And skittles.”

“Skittles?” she asks, full-out laughing, and Jack nods.

“They’re really quite popular.”

“Wait,” Hatter says, “So this is mine?”

“It’s yours,” Jack says.

 

 

Hatters decides to have another Tea Shop, except it’ll have coffee and books and trinkets and real tea, this time, and music that changes it up.

He goes through a bit of a phase where he becomes obsessed with records, and gets a gorgeous record player for the store, and Alice puts up with his ridiculous tendencies and his obvious eccentricities and picks out paint colors. One day she stops by the shop with a rug that she found at a thrift store that’s full and soft and perfect, and he can’t help but kiss her then and there, his fingers sliding along her waist, holding her close, can’t help but tell her he loves her.

He hires a couple of college kids, and takes up haggling as an art form, and refuses to buy her flowers, because it’s stupid, really, paying money for something that’s already dying. He buys her a spider plant, instead, and then ends up taking care of it, because she’s absolutely rubbish at plants.

And maybe he’s getting the hang of it, here.

 

 

Alice comes by late one night as he’s locking up. She’s got her own set of keys to the shop, so she comes in while he’s in the back and about kills him with shock, but once he’s settled he makes them a warm cup of Chai, letting the word roll around a little in his mouth as he makes it.

“Alice,” he says, and she always smiles when he croons her name like that, she softens a little as if maybe she doesn’t need to be that hard with him, that strong with him. He likes that trust. He likes that touch of smile on her lips, that warmth in her eyes. “Alice,” he says.

“I love you,” she says. And she hadn’t said it yet. Not out loud. Not like that.

So he kisses her, because maybe she tastes a little like home, too, maybe she tastes like everything he’s ever looked for and couldn’t find, maybe he’s got everything he needs because he has her. Outside, the traffic slides softly by the windows. Inside, he holds her, and she kisses him, and he knows he’s where he wants to be.

 

  
_Finis_   


**Author's Note:**

> Originally written 13 March 2011

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] Your Heart Is All I Need / written by muir_wolf](https://archiveofourown.org/works/387866) by [EosRose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EosRose/pseuds/EosRose)




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